Sedgwick County in bottom third of Kansas health rankings

County health comparisons released Wednesday show Johnson and Wyandotte counties have the best and worst health, respectively. Sedgwick County stayed within its roughly bottom-third rank.

Gianfranco Pezzino, senior fellow and strategy team leader for the Kansas Health Institute, said the most disconcerting part of the rankings is the disparity of health between counties in Kansas.

“To think you have the top ranked county and the bottom ranked county neighbors, that’s really telling,” he said.

He pointed to adult smoking rates, childhood poverty and environmental factors as examples.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Institute released the Kansas rankings as part of its County Health Rankings & Roadmaps project.

The goal of the project is to educate the public on factors that influence health, and to encourage nonprofits, lawmakers and other community leaders to make changes that improve health.

When the rankings started in 2012, southeast Kansas had the overall worst health in the state.

Some of those counties improved health outcomes, but southeast Kansas still has the state’s worst health factors – social and physical elements that influence health.

But because the counties are ranked within Kansas, the rankings simply shift around the state for best, worst and in between. It doesn’t capture the state’s overall record, but instead compares health relative to other counties.

Poor physical environment

Rank One indicates the best score, and Rank 101 indicates the worst score, because four counties weren’t included in the comparison.

Sedgwick County ranks 69th for health factors in Kansas and 76th for health outcomes. Sedgwick County ranked similarly in past years.

The largest rank change for Sedgwick County this year was for the physical environment section.

The county dropped to the fifth worst in the state; it was 52nd in the state three years ago.

But the factors included for physical environment rankings change from year to year, so the rank could be skewed depending on which factors determine ranks each year.

The 2016 factors included air quality, drinking water violations, severe housing problems, driving alone to work and commute time while driving alone, which creates more pollution.

Pezzino, of the Kansas Health Institute, said Sedgwick County’s rank for social and economic factors stuck out to him. Sedgwick County ranks 12th worst in the state for those factors.

“The picture I get out of that is one where you have large pockets of poverty, low education and excessive crime rates,” Pezzino said.

He was also alarmed at the disconnect between the high number of doctors in the county, and yet low-scoring quality measures, such as the percent of people who received diabetic screenings and mammography screenings. (Mammography screenings have decreased instead of increased.)

“Having a lot of doctors and a lot of hospitals is really not enough to ensure good health in the community,” Pezzino said.

On a positive note, he said, he was encouraged to see the rate of people who pursue some level of college steadily increase and see unemployment steadily decrease.

Health factors and outcomes

The two categories, health outcomes and health factors, each have five elements that most influence county rank.

Sedgwick County scored poorly in four of the five elements for each category.

Health outcomes: Sedgwick County scored poorly for low birth weight, poor mental health days, poor physical health days and poor or fair overall health.

The county scored well for premature death, which is an area’s potential for death before age 75.

Health factors: Sedgwick County scored poorly for unemployment, violent crime, sexually transmitted infections and adult smoking.

The county scored well for preventable hospital stays.

All counties surrounding Sedgwick County ranked better than Sedgwick, but to varying degrees.

Butler and Harvey counties ranked within the top quarter of all counties in Kansas. Sumner, Reno and Kingman sat within mid-range rankings.

Urban versus rural counties

▪ Rural counties have higher rates of smoking, obesity, child poverty, teen births and higher uninsured rates.

▪ Premature death rates – an area’s potential for death before age 75 – worsened in rural counties over the past decade, while urban rates improved.

▪ Urban counties have more residents who attended college.

This story was originally published March 16, 2016 at 8:18 AM with the headline "Sedgwick County in bottom third of Kansas health rankings."